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Unlike inorganic nanoparticles, organic nanoparticles (oNPs) offer the advantage of "interior tailorability," thereby enabling the controlled variation of physicochemical characteristics and functionalities, for example, by incorporation of diverse functional small molecules. In this study, a unique inimer-based microemulsion approach is presented to realize oNPs with enhanced control of chemical and mechanical properties by deliberate variation of the degree of hyperbranching or cross-linking. The use of anionic cosurfactants led to oNPs with superior uniformity. Benefitting from the high initiator concentration from inimer and preserved chain-end functionality during atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), the capability of oNPs as a multifunctional macroinitiator for the subsequent surface-initiated ATRP was demonstrated. This facilitated the synthesis of densely tethered poly(methyl methacrylate) brush oNPs. Detailed analysis revealed that exceptionally high grafting densities (~1 nm-2) were attributable to multilayer surface grafting from oNPs due to the hyperbranched macromolecular architecture. The ability to control functional attributes along with elastic properties renders this "bottom-up" synthetic strategy of macroinitiator-type oNPs a unique platform for realizing functional materials with a broad spectrum of applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the development of deep learning has further improved hash retrieval technology. Most of the existing hashing methods currently use Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) to process image and text information, respectively. This makes images or texts subject to local constraints, and inherent label matching cannot capture finegrained information, often leading to suboptimal results. Driven by the development of the transformer model, we propose a framework called ViT2CMH mainly based on the Vision Transformer to handle deep Cross-modal Hashing tasks rather than CNNs or RNNs. Specifically, we use a BERT network to extract text features and use the vision transformer as the image network of the model. Finally, the features are transformed into hash codes for efficient and fast retrieval. We conduct extensive experiments on Microsoft COCO (MS-COCO) and Flickr30K, comparing with baselines of some hashing methods and image-text matching methods, showing that our method has better performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental heterogeneity in cold seeps is usually reflected by different faunal aggregates. The sediment microbiome, especially the geochemical cycling-associated communities, sustains the ecosystem through chemosynthesis. To date, few studies have paid attention to the structuring and functioning of geochemical cycling-associated communities relating to environmental heterogeneity in different faunal aggregates of cold seeps. In this study, we profiled the microbial community of four faunal aggregates in the Haima cold seep, South China Sea. Through a combination of geochemical and metaomics approaches, we have found that geochemical variables, such as sulfate and calcium, exhibited a significant variation between different aggregates, indicating changes in the methane flux. Anaerobic methanotrophic archaea (ANME), sulfate-reducing, and sulfide-oxidizing bacteria (SRB and SOB) dominated the microbial community but varied in composition among the four aggregates. The diversity of archaea and bacteria exhibited a strong correlation between sulfate, calcium, and silicate. Interspecies co-exclusion inferred by molecular ecological network analysis increased from non-seep to clam aggregates and peaked at the mussel aggregate. The networked geochemical cycling-associated species showed an obvious aggregate-specific distribution pattern. Notably, hydrocarbon oxidation and sulfate reduction by ANME and SRB produced carbonate and sulfide, driving the alkalization of the sediment environment, which may impact the microbial communities. Collectively, these results highlighted that geofluid and microbial metabolism together resulted in environmental heterogeneity, which shaped the C and S cycling-associated microbial community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lightweight design of the hood is crucial for the structural optimization of an entire vehicle. However, traditional high-fidelitybased lightweight methods are time-consuming due to the complex structures of the hood, and the lightweight results heavily rely on engineering experiences. To this end, an improved adaptive marine predator algorithm (AMPA) is proposed to solve this problem. Compared to the original marine predator algorithm (MPA), the proposed AMPA adapts to optimization problems through three enhancements, including chaotic theory-based initialization, a mixed search strategy, and dynamic partitioning of iteration phases. Experimental comparisons of AMPA, MPA, and eight state-of-the-art algorithms are conducted on IEEE CEC2017 benchmark functions. AMPA outperforms the others in both 30- and 50-dimensional experiments. Friedman and Wilcoxon's sign-rank tests further confirm AMPA's superiority and statistical significance. An implicit parametric model of the hood is generated, and the critical design variables are determined through global sensitivity analysis to realize hood lightweight. The stacking method is employed to construct a surrogate meta-model of the hood to accelerate the optimization efficiency of the vehicle hood. Utilizing the meta-model and the proposed AMPA, the hood mass is reduced by 7.43% while all six static and dynamic stiffness metrics are enhanced. The effectiveness of the proposed optimization method is validated through finite element analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, cross-modal hash retrieval has become a popular research field because of its advantages of high efficiency and low storage. Cross-modal retrieval technology can be applied to search engines, cross-modal medical processing, etc. The existing main method is to use a multi-label matching paradigm to finish the retrieval tasks. However, such methods do not use fine-grained information in the multi-modal data, which may lead to suboptimal results. To avoid cross-modal matching turning into label matching, this paper proposes an end-to-end fine-grained cross-modal hash retrieval method, which can focus more on the fine-grained semantic information of multi-modal data. First, the method refines the image features and no longer uses multiple labels to represent text features but uses BERT for processing. Second, this method uses the inference capabilities of the transformer encoder to generate global fine-grained features. Finally, in order to better judge the effect of the fine-grained model, this paper uses the datasets in the image text matching field instead of the traditional label-matching datasets. This article experiment on Microsoft COCO (MS-COCO) and Flickr30K datasets and compare it with the previous classical methods. The experimental results show that this method can obtain more advanced results in the cross-modal hash retrieval field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cuttlefish are sensitive to the breeding environment, and the low-salinity environment significantly impacts their growth and immunity. So far, it is difficult to breed this species artificially. This study was conducted in Sepia lycidas. And the aim was to investigate the differences in protein phosphorylation in the intestine of S. lycidas under different salinity conditions. Firstly, 999 phosphoproteins (specific peptide = 1), 1928 phosphopeptides, and 2727 phosphorylation sites were identified. Among them were 284 down-regulated expression phosphorylation sites (corresponding to 115 phosphoproteins) and 674 up-regulated expression phosphorylation sites (corresponding to 408 phosphoproteins) in the intestine under a low salinity environment compared with that under a natural salinity environment. Next, GO analysis found that more phosphoproteins corresponding to differentially expressed phosphorylation sites were related to anatomical structure development, multicellular organism development, regulation of the cellular process, etc. The molecular functions of these proteins mainly contain protein binding, transferase activity, catalytic activity, and heterocyclic compound binding. And they are mainly involved in the cellular components of intracellular anatomical structure, organelle, and cytoplasm. KEGG enrichment analysis of the differential phosphoproteins suggested that many significantly enriched pathways were related to the phosphatidylinositol signaling system, cell junction (adherens junction and tight junction), and inositol phosphate metabolism. Finally, changes in environmental salinity can affect the intestinal structure, metabolism, and immune homeostasis of S. lycidas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'angiogenic switch' is critical for tumor progression. However, the pathological details and molecular mechanisms remain incompletely characterized. In this study, we established mammal xenografts in zebrafish to visually investigate the first vessel growth (angiogenic switch) in real-time, by inoculating tumor cells into the perivitelline space of live optically transparent Transgenic (flk1:EGFP) zebrafish larvae. Using this model, we found that hypoxia and hypoxiainducible factor (HIF) signaling were unnecessary for the angiogenic switch, whereas vascular endothelial growth factor A gene (Vegfa) played a crucial role. Mechanistically, transcriptome analysis showed that the angiogenic switch was characterized by inhibition of translation, but not hypoxia. Phosphorylation of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 alpha (Eif2a) and the expression of Vegfa were increased in the angiogenic switch microtumors, and 3D tumor spheroids, and puromycin-treated tumor cells. Vegfa overexpression promoted early onset of the angiogenic switch, whereas Vegfa knockout prevented the first tumor vessel from sprouting. Pretreatment of tumor cells with puromycin promoted the angiogenic switch in vivo similarly to Vegfa overexpression, whereas Vegfa knockdown suppressed the increase. This study provides direc and dynamic in vivo evidences that inhibition of translation, but not hypoxia or HIF signaling promotes the angiogenic switch in tumor by increasing Vegfa transcription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regulation of apple (Malus domestica) fruit texture during ripening is complex and a fundamental determinant of its commercial quality. In climacteric fruit, ripening-related processes are regulated by ethylene (ET), and jasmonate (JA) is also involved in the ethylene biosynthesis pathway, mainly through the transcription factor MYC2. However, the molecular genetic mechanism for fruit ripening processes between the JA and ET signaling pathways still needs to be elucidated. In order to explore how JA regulates apple fruit ripening through ERF4, we used 'Gala' and 'Ralls Janet' fruit at different developmental stages as experimental materials to determine the fruit firmness and related gene expression analysis. Meanwhile, we carried out different hormone treatments on 'Gala' fruit at ripening stage. Here, we show that ERF4 is a core JA signaling hub protein JASMONATE ZIM-DOMAIN (JAZ) interactor that affects ethylene signaling pathways. During fruit development, ERF4 represses the expression of ACS1 and ACO1 by interacting with JAZ, as well as with the JA-activated transcription factor MYC2. Ripening is promoted in JAZ-suppressed apples. Thus, ERF4 acts as a molecular link between ethylene and JA hormone signals, and the natural variation of the ERF4 Ethylene-responsive binding factor-associated amphiphilic repression (EAR) motif decreases repression of ethylene biosynthesis genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine oil spills are a significant concern worldwide, destroying the ecological environment and threatening the survival of marine life. Various oil-degrading bacteria have been widely reported in marine environments in response to marine oil pollution. However, little information is known about culturable oil-degrading bacteria in cold seep of the deep-sea environments, which are rich in hydrocarbons. This study enriched five oil-degrading consortia from sediments collected from the Haima cold seep areas of the South China Sea. Parvibaculum, Erythrobacter, Acinetobacter, Alcanivorax, Pseudomonas, Marinobacter, Halomonas, and Idiomarina were the dominant genera. Further results of bacterial growth and degradation ability tests indicated seven efficient alkane-degrading bacteria belonging to Acinetobacter, Alcanivorax, Kangiella, Limimaricola, Marinobacter, Flavobacterium, and Paracoccus, whose degradation rates were higher in crude oil (70.3-78.0%) than that in diesel oil (62.7-66.3%). From the view of carbon chain length, alkane degradation rates were medium chains > long chains > short chains. In addition, Kangiella aquimarina F7, Acinetobacter venetianus F1, Limimaricola variabilis F8, Marinobacter nauticus J5, Flavobacterium sediminis N3, and Paracoccus sediminilitoris N6 were first identified as oil-degrading bacteria from deep-sea environments. This study will provide insight into the bacterial community structures and oil-degrading bacterial diversity in the Haima cold seep areas, South China Sea, and offer bacterial resources to oil bioremediation applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-modal hashing encodes heterogeneous multimedia data into compact binary code to achieve fast and flexible retrieval across different modalities. Due to its low storage cost and high retrieval efficiency, it has received widespread attention. Supervised deep hashing significantly improves search performance and usually yields more accurate results, but requires a lot of manual annotation of the data. In contrast, unsupervised deep hashing is difficult to achieve satisfactory performance due to the lack of reliable supervisory information. To solve this problem, inspired by knowledge distillation, we propose a novel unsupervised knowledge distillation cross-modal hashing method based on semantic alignment (SAKDH), which can reconstruct the similarity matrix using the hidden correlation information of the pretrained unsupervised teacher model, and the reconstructed similarity matrix can be used to guide the supervised student model. Specifically, firstly, the teacher model adopted an unsupervised semantic alignment hashing method, which can construct a modal fusion similarity matrix. Secondly, under the supervision of teacher model distillation information, the student model can generate more discriminative hash codes. Experimental results on two extensive benchmark datasets (MIRFLICKR-25K and NUS-WIDE) show that compared to several representative unsupervised cross-modal hashing methods, the mean average precision (MAP) of our proposed method has achieved a significant improvement. It fully reflects its effectiveness in large-scale cross-modal data retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockades is heterogeneous in different molecular subtypes of gastric cancer (GC). In this study, we analyzed relevant clinical trials to identify the molecular subtypes associated with the efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockades, and public datasets, patient samples, and GC cell lines were used for investigating potential mechanisms. We found that GC with EBV-positive, MSI-H/dMMR, TMB-H or PIK3CA mutant subtype had enhanced efficacy of PD-L1/PD-1 blockades. Also, differentially expressed genes of these molecular subtypes shared the same gene signature and functional annotations related to immunity. Meanwhile, CIBERSORT identified that the overlapping landscapes of tumor-infiltrating immune cells in the four molecular subtypes were mainly M1-like macrophages (M1). The relationships between M1 and clinical characteristics, M1, and gene signatures associated with PD-1/PD-L1 blockades also revealed that M1 was associated with improved prognosis and required for the efficacy of PD-L1/PD-1 blockades in GC. We identified that tumor-infiltrating CD68+CD163- macrophages could represent M1 calculated by CIBERSORT in clinical application, and CXCL9, 10, 11/CXCR3 axis was involved in the mechanism of CD68+CD163- macrophages in the enhanced efficacy of PD-L1/PD-1 blockades. In conclusion, CD68+CD163- macrophages are required for the efficacy of PD-L1/PD-1 blockades and expand the applicable candidates in GC patients without the molecular subtypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mutations in transforming growth factor beta receptor II (TGFBR2) are detected in up to 30% of overall colorectal cancer (CRC). Dysregulation of some microRNAs participated in the CRC pathogenesis. In this study, we used the gene ontology analyses, the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analyses and gene set enrichment analysis to indicate that miR-3191 was involved in the regulation of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-BETA) signal pathway in CRC. These bioinformatics results were supported by data obtained from CRC samples and experiments in vitro. The luciferase reporter assay was used to confirm that miR- 3191 modulates TGF-BETA signal pathway by targeting TGFBR2. By transwell migration and invasion assays, we showed that miR-3191 promoted CRC cell migration and invasion by downregulating TGFBR2. And it may serve as a novel therapeutic strategy for treating CRC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Androgen, which acts via the androgen receptor (AR), plays crucial roles in mammalian ovarian function. Recent studies showed that androgen/AR signaling regulates follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) expression in follicles; however, the detailed mechanism underlying this regulation remained unknown. Here, we demonstrate that AR and miR-126* cooperate to inhibit FSHR expression and function in pig follicular granulosa cells (pGCs). In pGCs, overexpression of AR decreased, whereas knockdown increased, FSHR mRNA and protein expression; however, neither manipulation affected FSHR promoter activity. Using a dualluciferase reporter assay, we found that the FSHR gene is a direct target of miR-126*, which inhibits FSHR expression and increases the rate of AR-induced apoptosis in pGCs. Collectively, our data show for the first time that the AR/miR-126* axis exerts synergetic effects in the regulation of FSHR expression and apoptosis in pGCs. Our findings thus define a novel pathway, AR/miR-126*/FSHR, that regulates mammalian GC functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]